Category Archives: Islam

Suspected Boko Haram militants have abducted at least 20 women close to where
200 schoolgirls were kidnapped in northern Nigeria, eyewitnesses say. The women were loaded on to vans at gunpoint and driven away to an unknown
location in Borno state, they add. The army has not commented on the incident, which occurred on the nomadic Garkin
Fulani settlement on Thursday. The Nigerian military has faced mounting criticism for failing to stop militant attacks in
the north-east. Despite a state of emergency in place in the region, residents say the army is largely
inactive or even absent, allowing the Boko Haram militants to continue their attacks. The group has waged an increasingly bloody insurgency since 2009 in an attempt to
create an Islamic state in Nigeria – and thousands of people have died in their attacks
and the subsequent security crackdown. ‘Too late’ The latest incident occurred close to where more than 200 schoolgirls were snatched
from the remote Chibok town near the Cameroonian border on 14 April. A member of a local vigilante group set up to resist such attacks said that in addition to
the women, the militants also seized three men who had tried to stop the abduction. “We tried to go after them when the news got to us about three hours later, but the
vehicles we have could not go far, and the report came to us a little bit late,” Alhaji Tar
said. The women are from a mainly Muslim community of cattle herders. The government has been facing growing pressure both at home and abroad to do
more to tackle Boko Haram since the abduction of the schoolgirls, who are mostly
Christians. On Monday, the military announced it had killed 50 insurgents in anti-terrorism
operations in recent days and prevented further Islamist raids on villages in Borno and
neighbouring Adamawa state. It follows a wave of militant attacks on villages in recent days, with as many as 200
people feared killed in one attack alone in the remote Gwoza area of Borno state. Local residents, now living rough in the Mandara mountains, told the BBC on Sunday the
army had still not arrived in their villages a week after the first raid. They say Boko Haram fighters have raised black and white jihadist flags in several
villages and it is too dangerous for men to venture there so elderly women were been
sent to bury the dead. BBC Nigeria correspondent Will Ross says the government appears reluctant to
acknowledge the attacks in Gwoza, an area which is now a Boko Haram stronghold. A new report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and the Norwegian
Refugee Council says 3,300 people have been killed by Boko Haram this year alone. The UK government is due to host a ministerial meeting about northern Nigeria’s
security in London on 12 June, following on from last month’s summit in Paris about
tackling Boko Haram.

Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria has many influences on the continent. Be it in business, art, music or culture, the West African country is spreading its dominance across the continent with ferocity. But nowhere is Nigeria having more influence in Zambia than among the evangelical Christians, as Jack Zimba reports. Read more: http://zambiatoday.com/?p=127

A new video released by Islamist militants Boko Haram claims to show around 130 girls kidnapped from a school in Nigeria last month.

The group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, said they would be held until all imprisoned militants had been freed. He said the girls had converted to Islam. The video, released on Monday, claims to show them praying.

Boko Haram abducted more than 200 girls in northern Nigeria on 14 April and threatened to sell them. The BBC’s John Simpson in the northern city of Maiduguri said Boko Haram’s comments showed signs that the group was willing to negotiate.

Three of the girls – wearing the full-length hijab – are shown speaking in the 17-minute video, obtained by French news agency AFP. Two girls say they were Christian and have converted to Islam, while the other says she is Muslim. “These girls, these girls you occupy yourselves with… we have indeed liberated them. These girls have become Muslims,” Abubakar Shekau says in the video.

It is thought the majority of the abducted girls are Christians, although there are a number of Muslims among them. Correspondents said the girls appeared calm and one said that they had not been harmed.

There is no indication of when or where the video was taken, although the location appears to be rural.

It is estimated to show about 130 girls – just under half of the 276 pupils abducted from their school in the northern state of Borno. Our correspondent says this could mean those abducted had been split into smaller groups to help avoid detection.

Boko Haram had previously admitted to kidnapping the girls.

The group, whose name means “Western education is forbidden,” said they should not have been at school and should get married instead.

Boko Haram has been engaged in a violent campaign against the Nigerian government since 2009.

Earlier, the governor of Nigeria’s Borno state said he had information on the whereabouts of the schoolgirls.

Governor Kashim Shettima said he had passed reports of the sightings of the girls to the military for verification.

He added that he did not think the girls had been taken across the border to Chad or Cameroon.

The Nigerian government has faced heavy criticism of its response to the mass abduction but President Goodluck Jonathan said on Sunday that assistance from abroad had made him optimistic of finding the girls.

The UK and US already have teams helping on the ground in Nigeria and an Israeli counter-terrorism team is also on its way to the country.

Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande has offered to host a summit in Paris next Saturday with Nigeria and its neighbours focused on Boko Haram and the country’s security challenges.

[Zimbabwe Standard] Former Finance minister Tendai Biti's Zambian lawyers will challenge the neighbouring country's decision to deny him political asylum after he was deported last week in defiance of a High Court order.